Tech Rebels

As you probably know, Ars is all about creating a scene. As we celebrate our 15th anniversary, we’re looking back at some of the people, companies, and technologies that have caused the biggest stirs in the past decade and a half. Today, the focus shifts to technological innovations that have radically changed—or promise to change—our digital lives.

A spirited editorial debate led to a consensus on three technologies: time-shifting of broadcast content, fiber-to-premises broadband services, and social networking. Each of these has directly or indirectly impacted the way we work, play, and interact with the world. The roots of each extend back to before Ars was a glimmer in Ken Fisher’s eye, but we'll continue experiencing their effects for the foreseeable future.

Time-shifting (or why Jack Valenti is spinning in his grave)

Time-shifting content has been with us for a long time, driving the media industry nuts ever since the invention of the video cassette recorder. In 1982, Jack Valenti—then president of the Motion Picture Association of America—testified before Congress, saying, “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” (See the Ars series on TV for more Valenti rage.)

But Betamax and VHS were just the beginning. It was a shaky beginning at that, as I can tell you firsthand from years of prying my kids’ mangled copy of half a season’s worth of Power Rangers episodes out of the maw of a VCR tape slot. When hard drives were eventually married to video recording, it did a lot more than just change the recording mechanism. Digital recording moved time-shifting of TV and other content off tapes, virtualizing and outsourcing the recording process to the point that broadcast times are almost irrelevant.

So in some ways, Jack Valenti was right about time-shifting, or at least prescient. The virtualization of broadcast content—its separation from the tyranny of network time slots and from recording media itself—has changed the acts of viewing and listening. It’s accelerated the disintegration of network television and hastened the creation of new media outlets made purely for the Internet. If it weren't for the move from analog VCR to bits on a disk, things like Netflix’s on-demand service and its all-at-once release of the original series House of Cards would never have happened.

The revolution will be TiVo’d

This modern digital revolution began with the birth of the DVR. The most successful of the earliest batch, first arriving on the market circa 1999, was TiVo. Ken Fisher reviewed the first TiVo in 2000 for Ars, declaring that TiVo “changed the way I watch TV.”

TiVo didn’t spawn much controversy with broadcasters. The device even won an Emmy Award in 2006 for “Outstanding Innovation and Achievement in Advanced Media Technology.” But it did spawn a fleet of other products that raised copyright holders’ ire. Dish was an early adopter of TiVo technology in its satellite TV boxes, and a derivative of that marriage called Hopper (a multi-room DVR system that includes ad skipping technology) has raised the blood pressure of TV network executives. Viacom was so ticked that the company blocked CNET from awarding the device a “best in show” at CES even after the editors had already told Dish the product won.

A somewhat similar audio version called Inno, an XM radio DVR from Pioneer, equally aggravated the recording industry. Only after a fleet of recording company lawsuits against XM were settled could the device to continue to be sold (with XM agreeing to pay fees for the music).

Some time-shifting products would become the target of TiVo’s legal team, as TiVo went on to sue or extract payments from a string of companies for patent infringement. Just last year, Microsoft and TiVo agreed to a ceasefire on mutual patent lawsuits.

While DVRs broke the iron grip of the broadcast schedule, they still didn’t defeat the barrier of location. These early devices remained, for the most part, tethered to a single TV. They were restricted to whatever storage was in the device. When services and devices started to arise that broke out of those restrictions, making it possible to stream what was once restricted to broadcast and cable networks, that was when things got really interesting.

The battle over time-and-space shifting went high-definition when Cartoon Network sued Cablevision over its remote DVR service. This was a “boxless” service that recorded requested programs on disk at Cablevision’s central office. Cablevision won that lawsuit after the Supreme Court refused to hear it in 2009.

Today, time-shifting and on-demand streaming services have given networks competition like never before. In fact, the networks have tried to get into the time-shifting game themselves with streaming services like Hulu or HBO Go. But between DVRs, streaming services, and plain old piracy (how else does half the world watch Game of Thrones without HBO anyway?), cable companies and networks have lost much of the control they once held over how we watch their content.

The end of the TV world as we know it

Time-shifting has directly changed my life in a number of ways. I have three children, one in college; nearly all of what they watch is time-shifted content. Late last year, we got a big lesson in the value of time-shifting when my wife came home from nearly a month in the hospital. Instead of sending flowers, the Arsians sent a Roku box, which went into the recovery room we set up for her at home. After having missed four weeks of television, she was able to catch up on everything she had missed. These were programs she probably would have skipped entirely before, but now she could catch up at her own pace. (She’s become addicted to Chicago Fire as a result. Thanks, guys.)

The power to simply defer watching until later has also proven to be an unexpected delight. It allows us to watch more television as a family, whether it’s a collective catch-up on Bob’s Burgers or a by-appointment group viewing in Westeros. It’s been a gateway drug to on-demand video streaming for all of us.

Ars on TiVo

We've covered DVRs and time-shifting extensively over the past 15 years, dating back to our review of the TiVo back in 2000.

Here’s what some of the Ars staff said about their experiences with time-shifting in an informal straw poll:

Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher:

Although this started with VHS, DVRs really changed consumption patterns, particularly TiVo. Time-shifting has accelerated the decline of TV networks, and we expect that the next 15 years will see a complete reformation in content production and distribution for video.

It’s easy to underestimate this, but remember: Americans spend more time watching TV than anything other leisure activity. Furthermore, the adoption of DVRs has been incredibly rapid. There’s a ton of talk about the second screen, but the first screen is still reigning supreme.”

Managing Editor Eric Bangeman:

As Ken said, time-shifting changed consumption patterns and really upended the business models of the traditional networks. What interests me more about time-shifting, however, is how it has led to place-shifting.

Back in the old days of the VCR, the only way to watch a recording was at your house on the TV you recorded it from (aside from taking the tape over to someone's house, obviously). That was also the case with TiVo and other early DVRs. You could watch what you wanted when you consumed content on the device of the content producer's choosing, usually PCs and laptops in the pre-tablet days.

P2P and Usenet provided that ability to the technically savvy, but content providers and carriers (e.g., satellite and cable providers) have come around too. I'd argue that we have TiVo and the DVR to thank for that.

Deputy Editor Nate Anderson:

Personally, time-shifting crept up on me, but now I can’t recall the last time I watched a show when it aired. It’s all Internet-based streaming now. I don’t even bother with a DVR, which is tethered more directly to a single screen.

Senior IT Reporter Jon Brodkin:

When I was a kid, there were a few times I forgot to watch The Simpsons. I was crushed because I knew it could be months before the episode I'd missed might be shown again. The idea of not being able to watch a TV show because you weren't home at 8:30 pm on a particular night or simply forgot to turn the TV on sounds archaic to me now. Plus, there's nothing like building up a week's worth of Colbert Report episodes and binge-watching them in one sitting (while skipping the commercials).

Associate Writer Casey Johnston:

I think it's interesting that this has become such a popular method of consumption when information now travels so fast and there are spoilers galore. It's engendered a new level of respect for the notion of the spoiler. Consumers can now package and consume content the way they want with the ability to take control away from cable providers, at least in terms of when and where. I wouldn't say primetime or Thursday night have no meaning anymore in terms of TV, but a TV show can make as big of a splash getting dropped in a 13-episode chunk on Netflix as it can debuting in a prime time slot, if not an even bigger and more immediate one.

I agree that social networking is replacing blogs and more verbose communications, but I have doubts this is a completely positive move. By dumbing down discourse to one sentence, we are both trivializing communication and squeezing out thoughtful discussion that takes more than x number of allowable characters, while simultaneously making discussions potentially worldwide conversations and democratizing discourse by elevating the tweets of a 12 year old to the same level as world leaders.

If we were merely condensing the same information into smaller chunks, I wouldn't worry, but meaning and nuance is lost in the tiny blurbs.

Hopefully society will find a place for both as we culturally adapt to this revolution in communication.

Fiber still leaves me wondering whether its worth the hullaboola and, mostly the cost. Now, infrastructures obviously vary per country and countries that started with virtually nothing like Estonia can roll out fiber for the same or less cost than copper or cable but in countries like mine, high quality copper phone and cable lines, the advantages seem less clear cut.

In my own case, I have 120/10 cable without a data cap for 50 euro a month, I cannot fill that line except for short bursts when I download tv or movies, fiber (as offered here) would give me lower download speed and higher upload...but I dont really need a higher upload.

Maybe soon we will actually need such connections though, I remember being thrilled with having 768/256

“Today, 94 percent of Americans have access to wired high-speed Internet service (the highest percentage in the world) and 90 percent have a choice of fixed and mobile broadband competitors,” Cohen wrote. ”In Europe, only two percent of the population has access to these speeds, leaving technologists and policy makers there with a mere aspirational goal to extend 100Mbps speeds by 50 percent by 2020.”

And how many US households have access to 100Mbps speeds? I know where I live, Time Warner tops out at 20Mbps, and I only even get that about 50% of the time.

When used correctly, Twitter is an invaluable source of news, debate, and entertainment.

This is true, but it can be hard to find that balance, and even addictive, if you're inquisitive and an avid reader like me. Trying to sip from the firehose is tempting! I was always checking my timeline to see what was going on, what I was missing, and to keep from falling behind.

I nuked my account and just setup a list of bookmarks on my Pinboard account with the twitter accounts I liked. Not sure why it made a difference, but it went from being a daily distraction to a harmless few-times-a-week diversion.

After reading this article, I felt like I've been living under a rock. No time-shifting, no social networking, and at thirty I wouldn't imagine I'm that old. Maybe these things just aren't taking off at the same rate in scandinavia as they are in the US.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't datacaps a much bigger hindrance than connection speeds, especially when it comes to adopting streamed services? I don't want to nation bash here, but pointing out how large a portion of the population has access to broadband is a moot point, if people are struggling with arbitrary limitations.

RE Fiber: It's not about speed, it's about bandwidth. I live in the country and don't have access to wire Internet. I have to get it through Home Fusion. I get about 10-20 MBS - which is fine for me. I can watch videos, play FPS games, Skype, etc all with no problems. The issues is the DATA CAP. Every month I have to check to make sure I don't go over. I get 20GB for $90 US.

I think that the biggest problem is that we are losing, somewhat, the ability to carry on meaningful, natural conversations ala as little as five years ago. I've read on this site how people will spend at least a couple of minutes texting at dinner.I'm not trying to go all Emily Post or anything, but there needs to be a line drawn, a barrier put up between people and their constant barrage of texts, IMs, e-mails, tweets, and status updates, at least sometimes.We need to remember that we are, at heart, creatures in a pack, and text is a substitute for the real thing, not a replacement.If we forget, then our world will truly be changed, and not in a good way, I fear.

As a teenager, I was thrilled when my 56k V.92 modem actually downloaded at something near 56k - using NetZero (and it's various successors, after each service discovered that 'free internet' was not a good business model, in spite of their clever marketing). My first fiber install blew me away when I did some speed tests and checked ping times that averaged under 50 ms. I recall that around 2001/02, a local and privately-owned company led by an enthusiastic executive was holding seminars on fiber rollouts in Northern California, and he extolled the virtues of FTTP: incredible speeds, streaming TV in HD, voice, everything bundled together at a reasonable price.

Naturally, the company went under due to the incredible costs associated with FTTP deployments, leaving tons of dark fiber.

[rant] Regarding social networking: I agree with dsrickard in that social networking and instant communication has really done a disservice to meaningful interactions and conversations. Too many subjects are relegated to informal communication, and social skills of the younger generation have been stunted. I've even seen some of my peers succumb to this nonsense. I am sick of trying to carry on a conversation with someone as they check their Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account on their smartphone. So much so that my immediate circle of friends has created a rule: no smartphones during dinner (or any other similar occasion). It is refreshing.[/rant]

I bought a TiVo Series 1 machine at Circuit City in August of 2001. I remember my wife standing there next to me as I read about the device on the packaging, straining her patience. "You know you're going to buy it - just put it in the cart already, honey." We had been together nearly ten years by that point, and my love of tech and gadgets was well known to her by that point. "The sooner we pay, the sooner we can get to dinner."

Little did we know the change that silver box would play in our media consumption life together. The fact we could watch what we wanted WHEN we wanted to, without complicated VCR setup, the Season Passes, the way TiVo could make suggestions, and the commercial skipping - it changed everything.

We still have that original Series 1 box. It's been upgraded with a bigger hard drive from weaknees.com, and it still records our shows faithfully. We also have two other TiVo boxes of varying vintages. My five year old son knows nothing of having to watch only what was on TV live - he consumes his episodes of PBS kid shows on demand from TiVo, sorting through episodes at will. I don't think he's ever sat through a commercial.

And my wife, the non-techie? She calmly explained to me after about two years of living with TiVo that if we were to ever get a divorce, she gets the custody of the TiVo.

I agree that social networking is replacing blogs and more verbose communications, but I have doubts this is a completely positive move. By dumbing down discourse to one sentence, we are both trivializing communication and squeezing out thoughtful discussion that takes more than x number of allowable characters, while simultaneously making discussions potentially worldwide conversations and democratizing discourse by elevating the tweets of a 12 year old to the same level as world leaders.

If we were merely condensing the same information into smaller chunks, I wouldn't worry, but meaning and nuance is lost in the tiny blurbs.

I used to agree with this, but I have recently changed my mind as my use of Facebook changes and deepens. I have joined several formal science / policy groups, and the discussions in these groups are as deep and detailed as you could ever wish for. Like the internet, it's how you use it that matters.

I support a campaign on a particular issue, and have just joined the core strategy group of that campaign. The core group is spread around the country, and has set up a separate private facebook group to the main campaign group, for internal discussions only.

I've been involved in campaigning for a long time, but am relatively new to Facebook, and this internal private Facebook group is one of the best tools I've ever used for campaign work - it's far better than email which often descends into a muddled mess. We're able to keep up discussion on several technical topics at a time, and refer to external media more easily than through email, and share documents including version control, and rapidly create, enter and exit sub-group chat. Good luck trying that via other means with non-technical volunteers. It's not perfect - search is an issue - but it's good.

Regarding DVRs, no mention of ReplayTV? It is literally what defined a DVR and was pretty successful for its time, although it was completely eclipsed by TiVo down the road for reasons which are still pretty elusive (it seems to have something to do with the fact that since they were first, the content providers sued the pants off of them, and they eventually "won" the case but still went into bankruptcy - which completely set the stage for another company, e.g. TiVo, to roll in unabated).

...that as more tech savvy folks time-shift their viewing, they will also notice the ads included with the content less and less. And these are the highly sought after folks for the ad business. And these folks will gradually make it easier for the masses to do the same..

Which means ads will be less effective, forcing more good content to some type of pay model to survive. Broadcast TV will become the domain of the less <pick your favorite positive adjective> and spiral into the cesspool.

Eventually everything "worth watching" will require a subscription, above and beyond the costs associated with just "being connected," to watch legally.

Yes, this process is already underway, even the cesspool part. We're just getting started.

There is a massive policy debate in Australia about it at the moment. The NBN rollout is under way. The conservative opposition thinks the internet is a bit of a waste and no one would want more that 25MB/sec anyway. They and the mainstream media lackeys (Rupert Murdoch) are working hard to lampoon the NBN rollout.

The biggest paradigm shift of broadband, versus dial-up, was for me the always on nature of it. Instead of having to fire up the modem and make a connection to Compuserve I was "always on." It changed the basic way I used and thought of on-line access.

You could probably have put a fork in written encyclopedias and dictionaries at that moment. I still own a full size Oxford English Dictionary and some encyclopedias but they are now just art on my bookshelf.

As a teenager, I was thrilled when my 56k V.92 modem actually downloaded at something near 56k - using NetZero (and it's various successors, after each service discovered that 'free internet' was not a good business model, in spite of their clever marketing). My first fiber install blew me away when I did some speed tests and checked ping times that averaged under 50 ms. I recall that around 2001/02, a local and privately-owned company led by an enthusiastic executive was holding seminars on fiber rollouts in Northern California, and he extolled the virtues of FTTP: incredible speeds, streaming TV in HD, voice, everything bundled together at a reasonable price.

Naturally, the company went under due to the incredible costs associated with FTTP deployments, leaving tons of dark fiber.

[rant] Regarding social networking: I agree with dsrickard in that social networking and instant communication has really done a disservice to meaningful interactions and conversations. Too many subjects are relegated to informal communication, and social skills of the younger generation have been stunted. I've even seen some of my peers succumb to this nonsense. I am sick of trying to carry on a conversation with someone as they check their Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account on their smartphone. So much so that my immediate circle of friends has created a rule: no smartphones during dinner (or any other similar occasion). It is refreshing.[/rant]

Remember those AOL tin CD cases? Aah, AOL discs were the first I ever exploded in the microwave. Good times.

Also, it's kind of like phone etiquette. If you're having a meaningful conversation, the phone's ring gets no response except, perhaps, to shut the damn thing up.Just today, I was on the phone, and I kept getting bombarded with Facebook notifies. I turned off the app. Problem solved.Taking a break is surprisingly difficult for a lot of people, and that is ... well, odd, disturbing.

Given that the ISS cost in the neighborhood of $150 billion [http://what-if.xkcd.com/45/], I don't see why $100 billion on Gb connections to every home is that daunting. It would certainly have a more direct impact than the ISS has on individual lives.

We have cable companies whose prices have been going up as the cost of technology has been going down. They only advertise their teaser rates and conceal their standard prices. They make you rent their equipment if you want to record over cable. We have blu ray that depends on secret keys. The big expense of buying a player is buying the software. Nobody makes it clear how long that software is good for before you need a new version to have an up to date key. We have Microsoft who is looking for every opportunity to turn their products into rental so that they can collect endless fees without adding any new value. We have Amazon tracking my visits to Newegg and inflicting blinking advertisements on me when I try to read the Guardian. If this is progress, I am not interested in it.Of course there is a large amount of potentially truly disruptive technology development going on. Most of it is not visible to the popular imagination. If it does truly turn out to be disruptive, it will bring large problems because real disruption is always very difficult.

Also, it's kind of like phone etiquette. If you're having a meaningful conversation, the phone's ring gets no response except, perhaps, to shut the damn thing up.Just today, I was on the phone, and I kept getting bombarded with Facebook notifies. I turned off the app. Problem solved.Taking a break is surprisingly difficult for a lot of people, and that is ... well, odd, disturbing.

What we need to find is some old AOL floppies (yes, they did have those) and put them to good use: as coasters.

The biggest paradigm shift of broadband, versus dial-up, was for me the always on nature of it. Instead of having to fire up the modem and make a connection to Compuserve I was "always on." It changed the basic way I used and thought of on-line access.

You could probably have put a fork in written encyclopedias and dictionaries at that moment. I still own a full size Oxford English Dictionary and some encyclopedias but they are now just art on my bookshelf.

I agree and personally wondered why it wasn't the number one choice. With the follow up being always on personal Internet access via phones. These are the two changes that let the rest happen.

It is getting installed in my house later this week. Interestingly i have no choice about it, they are disconnecting the existing copper based phone network in the suburb and moving everyone over to fiber with i think VOIP over the top to provide phone services.

There is a federal election in September which the current opposition party is generally expected to win. The current government has a fibre to the premises(FTTP) policy the opposition is proposing a fibre to the node(FTTN).

The opposition has stated they will not reverse current contracts which will create "haves" and "have nots" in the population. Likely over time the current opposition communications minister will slowly move his party to FTTP as economics of doing bulk fibre rollouts works so much better, more than twice as cheap to connect each house as ad-hoc installs.

Is quite strong opposition to the network in the established media(ie tv, newspapers), they evidently can see the danger to their business.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.